Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Quick and Dirty Math

Lets start with a link. Algebra Help: The Math Video Tutor

Sounds good so far, right? I mean, who of us little people couldn't use a little help when it comes to our Algebra skills. "The Math Video Tutor - Fractions Thru Algebra is a 10 hour course that will fully help a student master all of the core topics in Pre-Algebra and Algebra 1." Why don't the schools implement this, I mean, why waste all that time in the classroom teaching math skills when we can get it in ten hours from a DVD. Someone tell the teachers! They can spend most of their year drinking coffee in the lounge rather then actually having to deal with those pesky students.

Also, "There are no traditional lectures of background material that won't help you solve problems and improve your skills." Background material? Who cares about background material? If you can cross multiply fractions, who cares to actually understand what is going on? You'll pass the test and go on with life!

Okay. I'll drop the sarcasm. A friend sent me this link saying he'd been thinking about getting this to help with his math skills. It took me about thirty seconds to figure out that this was a complete waste of money. Yeah, this'll teach you all the shortcuts you forgot from High School, but if you never understood why the short cuts worked how will you know when to apply them? If you understand that the bottom of a fraction is the number of pieces in a whole, and the top is the number of pieces present in that whole you'll have a start of understanding. You'll realize that you can divide up work between people, or how to know how much food to give another person (if you're in the service industry). You can see how your profits are and then be able to do the math to figure out if you are doing well or not. If all you understand is how to do the math then you miss out on the application there of.

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